Healing The Soil Through Regenerative Farming With Ric Scalzo
Care More Be Better: A Podcast For Sustainable Social Impact and Regeneration
Corinna Bellizzi
5 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2025
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The earth offers a lot of things that make us and the entire planet healthier – we only have to know which things are genuinely good for us. Ric Scalzo joins Corinna Bellizzi to share how he masterfully combines his knowledge with herbal medicine, regenerative farming, and ancient traditions to bring healing to people and the world as a whole. Ric explains why he believes the future of medicine begins with a microbiome of the soil and ourselves, as well as how to grow high-quality crops through regenerative practices while keeping the soil healthy. Ric also shares the many lessons he has learned from founding Gaia Herbs to starting his newest venture Kokora Life.
About Guest:
Ric Scalzo began his exploration of herbal and naturopathic medicine in 1980, delving into fields such as Naturopathic Herbal Medicine, Eclectic Herbal Medicine, Ayurvedic Medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and various diagnostic methods. He earned a master’s degree in Herbal Medicine from the School of Herbal Medicine and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine from Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine. After several years of medical practice, Ric founded Gaia Herbs in 1987 and grew Gaia to the most respected and successful herbal company in the country. After selling Gaia in 2019, Ric established the Institute of Botanical Research in Arizona and established CR Medicinal Farms, a regenerative organic farm in Costa Rica. These became the stepping stones for his new adventure called Kokora, a herbal products company focused on regenerative organic cultivation with a mission to "create the finest herbal remedies that promote health and vitality for all”. Celebrated for his pioneering work in Herbal Medicine and his dedication to preserving herbal integrity for over four decades, Ric continues to innovate in the field and plays a key role in integrating regenerative agriculture with herbal medicine.
Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kokoralife
Guest Website: https://kokoralife.com
Guest Social:
https://www.instagram.com/kokoralife/
https://www.tiktok.com/@kokora.life
https://www.facebook.com/kokoraliferegenerated
https://www.youtube.com/@KokoraLife
Show Notes: Raw audio
00:03:08 - Ric’s Origin Story
00:06:44 - Merging Traditional Wisdom With Modern Science
00:10:25 - Making Herbal Products Palatable
00:14:50 - Nutrition Density In The Soil
00:21:03 - Differences Between Regenerative And Organic
00:28:09 - Weeds: The First Succession Of Life
00:30:58 - How The Regenerative Movement Grows
00:39:50 - Growing Your Own Ingredients
00:45:10 - Ric’s Five Core Principles
00:51:27 - Plants As Teachers
00:50:25 - The Story Behind Kokora’s Name
01:09:19 - Episode Wrap-up And Closing Words
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You've spoken of regeneration as both personal and a planetary journey. |
| 0:05.2 | What do you think this word regeneration means to you on a more human level? |
| 0:10.8 | Well, you know, it's interesting because I spent the last two years traveling to Europe to Blue Zones. |
| 0:19.1 | And I've been looking at the lives of Centinarians doing a lot of |
| 0:23.5 | filming, documentary kind of work. And the takeaways are, what does it mean to be, to live a |
| 0:29.7 | life regenerative means that we must nourish, we must connect, and we must move. Those are the three |
| 0:37.4 | tenants of health span and lifespan. |
| 0:40.2 | Welcome to Care More Be Better, a podcast for people like you who care about the social impact of conscious companies and everyday heroes. |
| 0:49.4 | Hear inspiring stories from those who put people in planet before profit and personal gain. You'll learn |
| 0:55.4 | how you can make a difference, vote with your dollars, and get involved today. Here's your host, |
| 1:01.1 | Karina Belizzi. Hello and welcome to Care More Be Better, the podcast where we explore paths to |
| 1:08.2 | regeneration of the planet, of our systems, and of ourselves. |
| 1:12.1 | Today's guest is a pioneer in herbal medicine and a true champion of the regenerative movement, |
| 1:17.3 | Rick Scalzo. |
| 1:18.3 | Before we get started with Rick, I have got to share a tree planting update. |
| 1:22.9 | Through our partnership with forestplanet.org, we planned to plant over 20,000 trees this year. And as of April 24th, |
| 1:30.1 | 2025, when we're recording this episode, we've planted over 8,300 trees, which means we are |
| 1:37.9 | well on our way. You can help us scream past that 20,000 objective. You see, we're planting a tree for |
| 1:44.0 | every new subscriber, whether on Apple You see, we're planting a tree for every new subscriber, |
| 1:45.4 | whether on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or to our newsletter on care more be better.com. |
| 1:52.3 | Yes, that means we will plant more than one tree for each of you. So open up those apps, |
| 1:57.6 | smash those buttons, and follow along to help us create a greener world. |
... |
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